Jose Soriano's alarming trend is becoming impossible for Angels to ignore

Los Angeles Angels starting pitcher Jose Soriano was one of the biggest surprises at the outset of the season. Through his first six starts of his 2026 campaign, the right-hander allowed just one earned run over 37⅔ innings pitched while striking out over 30% of the batters he faced and walking just 9.3% of the opposition.

Given those numbers, it was understandable why so many Angels fans had visions of Soriano becoming the organization's first Cy Young Award winner since Bartolo Colon took home the honors more than two decades ago.

But Soriano's numbers have taken a nose dive in recent weeks. Since his start against the White Sox on April 28, Soriano's posted a 5.17 ERA over seven starts. His 5.12 FIP is right in line, meaning this isn't a product of poor defense or bad luck. Soriano has just been bad. And one stat stands out above all the others; he's walking too many batters.

Walks are haunting Angels' starting pitcher Jose Soriano

Walks are up all across Major League Baseball this season. Most experts and pundits chalk that up to the use of the new ABS challenge system, and there's certainly reason to believe that it could be one of the main culprits. There is, however, an easy solution to this ongoing problem, and it's as simple as just throwing strikes.

Since that fateful start in the South Side at the end of April, Soriano has issued 25 free passes over 38⅓ innings of work. That's a staggering number of walks and equates to a 14.4% BB-rate. If you shrink the number of games even further, you'll find that Soriano has walked 18 batters over his last four starts, including the seven he issued on June 1 against the Colorado Rockies.

You're not going to win many games when you walk that many batters, and during that aforementioned four-game stretch, the Halos went just 1-3. The lone game they won game against the Athletics when Soriano walked just one batter.

Well, now that we've diagnosed the problem, what's the solution. Angels fans might prefer an answer like altering the arm angle, increased usage of the breaking ball, or maybe even using the ABS challenge system more often on those borderline calls. But frankly, the answer is simple, and it's been the answer for as long as the game's been around. Throw strikes. But just because it's simply said doesn't mean it's simply executed.

And that's the part that Soriano is battling right now. He either has to find that pitch that looks like a strike and then drops out of the strike zone in order to induce a swing and miss. Or, he needs to operate on the edges and be more accurate with those borderline strikes. But the free passes can't continue.

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